Books by Pariah Burke

Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design & Production

Reader Reviews

One gets the sense that the author has really spent time in the trenches using these tools under deadline, so he doesn't waste your time.

— Christian Harder, Esri

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The book used by ITT Technical Institute to teach InDesign world­wide.

Mastering InDesign for Print Design and Production shows how expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als with dead­lines and bill­able hours use InDesign effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly. Through the case stud­ies and inter­views, read­ers will find inspired to look beyond the over-emphasized basic fea­tures and into the depths of InDesign’s util­i­ty for real-world print design.

Most InDesign books are writ­ten for begin­ners, and expe­ri­enced users are frus­trat­ed by them. When you already know how to make, fill, and thread a text box, the entire first half of most InDesign books is use­less. But this one doesn’t dwell on the basics. Mastering InDesign for Print Design and Production ful­fills the promise of the Mastering series, to pro­vide real-world skills to pro­fes­sion­als and stu­dents. Like all Mastering books, this one includes:

A “by pros for pros” approach: The author is an active pro­fes­sion­al work­ing in the field of graph­ic arts, lay­out, and design, writ­ing for pro­fes­sion­als who want to improve their skills or learn new skills.

Real-world exam­ples: Running through­out the text are exam­ples of how the var­i­ous skills are applied in real sce­nar­ios, described through­out the book in the form of exam­ples and case stud­ies from the author’s own design and con­sult­ing work, as well as inter­views with oth­er design­ers using InDesign on the job.

Skill-based teach­ing and hands-on exer­cis­es

The approach is humor­ous, mak­ing the diges­tion and reten­tion of com­pli­cat­ed infor­ma­tion eas­i­er for the read­er through quips, anec­dotes, and design- and print-geek humor. But at all times the book is true to its mis­sion: Helping a pro­fes­sion­al do her job in InDesign with­out frus­tra­tion, con­fu­sion, or aes­thet­ic com­pro­mise.

Although the book has a com­pre­hen­sive glos­sary, page one begins right away speak­ing to the core mar­ket—print pro­fes­sion­als—in indus­try terms about indus­try chal­lenges. This imme­di­ate­ly lets expe­ri­enced InDesign users know the book is about them. The approach is humor­ous, mak­ing the diges­tion and reten­tion of com­pli­cat­ed infor­ma­tion eas­i­er for the read­er through quips, anec­dotes, and design- and print-geek humor. But at all times the book is true to its mis­sion: Helping a pro­fes­sion­al do their job in InDesign with­out frus­tra­tion, con­fu­sion, or aes­thet­ic com­pro­mise.

“One gets the sense that the author has real­ly spent time in the trench­es using these tools under dead­line, so he doesn’t waste your time. It also has humor and a nice per­son­al writ­ing style that makes it bear­able to actu­al­ly read, (which is gen­er­al­ly the excep­tion and not the norm in tech­ni­cal books). To me there’s noth­ing worse than a soft­ware book that bores … it is an insult to the read­er and thus the ulti­mate fail­ure of any soft­ware title. This book also prac­tices what it preach­es: the page design is ele­gant and adheres to the rules of good design espoused in the text. A gem.” — C. Harder

From the Back Cover

Take Control of Your Designs and Production Workflow Using InDesign

Adobe’s InDesign gives you more cre­ative free­dom than you’ve ever expe­ri­enced in the world of pro­fes­sion­al lay­out and design. The prob­lem is that learn­ing how to work with this pow­er­ful soft­ware can be a dif­fi­cult and frus­trat­ing process.

This com­pre­hen­sive book goes beyond the basics, clear­ly show­ing you how to effec­tive­ly use InDesign to meet your print­ing and pre­press needs. It guides you through the new fea­tures and func­tion­al­i­ty of InDesign CS3 and helps you devel­op sophis­ti­cat­ed solu­tions. With a sol­id focus on improv­ing your effi­cien­cy and cre­ative free­dom, this book pro­vides the expert guid­ance you need to mas­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in work­groups; work effi­cient­ly with text, objects, and vari­able text; per­fect your print­ed out­put; har­ness the pow­er of InDesign trans­paren­cy and effects tools, and much more.

Along with invalu­able hands-on lessons and a healthy dose of advice from his 20 years in graph­ic arts, pub­lish­ing, and print pro­duc­tion, author Pariah S. Burke also pro­vides you with numer­ous exam­ples and case stud­ies that will help you apply the skills you’ve learned to real-world sit­u­a­tions.

Coverage includes:

Setting up press-ready pages and spreads with bleed, slug, and live areas

Placing and fit­ting images rapid­ly and accu­rate­ly

Working with attribute-level trans­paren­cy and new Photoshop-like effects for eye-popping results

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All logos and indicia, the phrases "Inspiring, Informing, and Empowering Creative Professionals" and "Informing, Empowering, Connecting Creative Professionals," as well as "Workflow Creative" and the stylized "¶P" and "WC" logos are Trademarks (™) or Registered Trademarks (®) of Pariah Burke.